Chapter 4 - The Box Beneath the Floor
By midnight, the police had left, Richard had been taken to the hospital for stitches, and the rain had grown heavy enough to blur the garden lights.
Daniel did not sleep.
He sat in the study with the security footage playing silently on the monitor. Again and again, the screen showed the power failing. Again and again, the dark figure appeared and disappeared. The locket vanished during the same forty-seven seconds, but the attacker had not been alone.
Someone inside the house had helped.
At two in the morning, Victoria entered carrying two mugs of coffee.
“You should rest,” she said.
“You should start telling the truth.”
She set one mug in front of him. “I have been telling you the truth.”
“You told me you were not related to Claire.”
“I told you I was not the woman you remembered from her photograph.”
“That is a clever way to lie.”
Victoria accepted the accusation. “I was afraid.”
“So was Claire.”
“I know.”
Daniel looked at the monitor. “What does ‘Sophie is the key’ mean?”
Victoria pulled a folded sheet of paper from her cardigan. It was old, yellowed, and marked with Claire’s handwriting.
Daniel recognized the slant of the letters immediately.
V, if you are reading this, Sophie has begun asking questions. Do not take her to St. Agnes. The answer is beneath the house where we first promised to protect her.
Daniel read it twice.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was sewn into the blue scarf.”
“Then why did the attacker steal the scarf?”
“Because he knew the note was inside.”
“How?”
Victoria looked toward the door. “Someone told him.”
Daniel rose. “Beneath which house?”
Victoria hesitated.
“Claire and I rented a cottage before she met you,” she said. “It was in Silver Creek. That is where we found the first group of women we helped. We called it the Lantern House.”
Daniel had never heard of it.
“The foundation’s first shelter?”
“Before it became a foundation.”
He reached for his coat.
Victoria caught his arm. “We cannot go there tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because if the attacker knows about the scarf, he may be waiting.”
“Then we bring Detective Price.”
“No.”
Daniel turned. “You just said someone is trying to finish what they started. I am not taking Sophie anywhere without police protection.”
“The police may be compromised.”
“You cannot keep accusing everyone.”
“I am not accusing everyone. I am accusing the one officer who signed Claire’s death certificate without a body.”
Daniel stopped.
“Who?”
“Deputy Marcus Vale.”
Daniel remembered the name from the old case. Vale had been the first officer at the crash site and the person who identified Claire’s belongings.
Before Daniel could respond, Sophie appeared in the doorway wearing her pajamas.
“I heard my name.”
Daniel softened his voice. “You should be asleep.”
“I tried. But Mom’s voice is in my head.”
Victoria came closer. “What do you mean?”
Sophie held out the book she had been carrying earlier. It was an old picture book about constellations. The cover was bent, and several pages had been cut open from the inside.
“I found this in the library,” she said. “There was a recording inside.”
Daniel took the book.
A tiny digital recorder had been hidden in the hollowed pages.
The device contained one file.
He pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Claire’s voice spoke.
“If Daniel finds this, tell him I never stopped loving him. Tell him I left because I believed someone in his family was going to hurt Sophie.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Claire continued.
“The account numbers are hidden beneath the house. The first four digits are Sophie’s birthday. The last four are the time she was born. Only Victoria knows where to look.”
The recording ended.
Sophie stared at Victoria. “You knew about this?”
Victoria was crying now. “I knew Claire left something. I did not know where.”
Daniel replayed the recording. Sophie’s birthday was March 17. She had been born at 4:26 in the afternoon.
0317. 1626.
He entered the numbers into the security panel beneath the study desk. Nothing happened.
Victoria looked at the floor. “The house where we first promised to protect her.”
Daniel understood.
The study had been built above an older foundation. Claire and Daniel had stood in that room on the day they brought Sophie home from the hospital. They had placed her tiny bassinet near the fireplace and promised that no matter what happened, they would make the house safe for her.
The floorboards beneath the fireplace were original.
Daniel moved the rug aside. A faint line cut across the wood.
Together, he and Victoria lifted the narrow panel.
A dark cavity opened beneath it.
Inside rested a metal box, a stack of bank ledgers, and a small cassette recorder.
Sophie knelt beside the opening. “Is that Mom’s?”
Daniel reached for the box.
Before his fingers touched it, the house alarm screamed.
Every light in the study turned red.
The front gate sensor flashed on the monitor.
Someone had entered the property.
Victoria grabbed Sophie.
Daniel closed the floor panel and reached for the gun beneath the desk.
On the screen, three figures moved across the garden.
Then the camera angle changed.
The image showed a fourth person already inside the house.
He stood at the end of the hallway, facing the study.
Daniel recognized him.
It was one of Richard’s security men.
The man looked directly into the camera and lifted one finger to his lips.
Then every screen went black.
Daniel stood motionless in the dark study, listening to the house breathe. The alarm continued to pulse, but the sound had become distant and unreal. Somewhere below the floor, the hidden box waited. Somewhere above it, an armed man was searching for the same thing.
Victoria pulled Sophie behind the desk. “There is another way out.”
“You knew about the passage?”
“Claire showed it to me.”
“You have been in this house for six years.”
“I was waiting for the right reason to use it.”
Daniel almost demanded an explanation, but footsteps crossed the corridor. The security man had reached the study door.
The handle moved.
Daniel reached beneath the desk and found the release lever Claire had described in the recording. A narrow panel opened behind the bookcase, revealing a black space between the walls.
“Take Sophie,” he whispered.
Victoria pushed the girl into the passage. Daniel followed and closed the panel just as the study door burst open.
Through a narrow crack, he watched the security man enter. The man walked directly to the fireplace, knelt, and pressed the floor panel. He had known exactly where to look.
He lifted the box Daniel had not yet touched.
Then he opened it and found it empty.
The security man turned slowly toward the bookcase.
Daniel held his breath.
Sophie’s hand found his in the darkness. Her fingers were cold, but she did not make a sound. Victoria pressed one finger to the girl’s lips.
The man pulled out his phone.
“They know,” he said. “The family has opened the passage.”
Daniel recognized the voice. It belonged to Cole.
Cole listened to someone on the other end, then said, “No. Richard is not in control anymore.”
The sentence confirmed what Daniel had feared. Richard’s security team did not answer to Richard.
Cole looked toward the bookcase one last time. “Tell Vane the locket is back in the house.”
He left.
Daniel waited until the footsteps faded. Then he led Victoria and Sophie through the passage toward the cellar, carrying the knowledge that their enemy had finally spoken his name.
At the cellar entrance, Sophie stopped. “Cole knew about the locket before we found it.”
Daniel looked back at the hidden passage. “He may have been watching the attic.”
“Then he knows about the letters.”
Victoria hugged the scarf against her chest. “He knows about one letter. Claire wrote several.”
“Where are the others?” Daniel asked.
“I do not know.”
Sophie looked at the stone walls. “Mom hid things in the house.”
Daniel remembered that Claire had once told him every old house had a heartbeat. He had thought she meant the pipes. Now he understood she meant the places where sound traveled through the walls.
He pressed his ear to the cellar brick.
May you like
Behind it came a faint hollow echo.
There was another room hidden beneath the house.
